Holidays

Visa has released the findings of a new survey that show how AI and digital tools are beginning to have an impact on holiday spending habits across the United States. The company says that it is seeing clear differences across generations, with younger consumers moving towards AI assisted shopping, digital currencies and other emerging payment trends.

"The data tells a fascinating story about the spending shift we're witnessing: shoppers are embracing AI and digital tools at remarkable speed, with nearly half of Americans now using AI to enhance their shopping experience," said Bruce Cundiff, vice president, Consumer Insights at Visa.

Every year, the holiday season brings a predictable spike in online activity. However, in 2025, new reports suggest the volume of newly created malicious infrastructure, account compromise activity, and targeted exploitation of eCommerce systems is markedly higher.

Fortinet’s FortiGuard labs identified more than 18,000 holiday-themed domains registered in the past three months, including terms such as ‘Christmas,’ ‘Black Friday,’ and ‘Flash Sale.’ At least 750 of these were confirmed malicious. This indicates many domains are still considered non-malicious, posing a potential risk.

Most ransomware attacks occur during weekends and holidays, times of distraction or disruption when the majority of SOCs are not adequately staffed.

A new report from Semperis finds that 52 percent of surveyed organizations in the US, UK, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Singapore, Canada, Australia and New Zealand were targeted at holidays or weekends.

The run up to the holiday period is a prime time for cyber attackers as they try to exploit the rise in online activity to launch phishing and spoofing attacks, distribute malware, and create fraudulent schemes.

Online retail brands are a prime target. Last year UK shoppers lost  more than £11.5 million to online scammers between November and January.  However, it’s important to remember that the risks also extend to other industry sectors, as employees may use work devices for last minute festive shopping and other end-of-year activity. Here we explore how scammers take advantage of this annual trend and how to protect against these threats.  

A survey from Defcon 17 back in 2009 revealed that 81 percent of hackers are more likely to be active in winter.

It's easy to understand why this might be, with the holiday period bringing a spike in online trading as well as businesses closing down or operating on skeleton staffs.

Every holiday season, Microsoft brings out an "ugly sweater" and this time it’s going way, way back with a special XP-themed Bliss design.

This sweater, which features the iconic Bliss backdrop from Windows XP, (originally a photo of a pretty blue sky and rolling green hills taken in Sonoma County, California) has been created in part to support The Nature Conservancy.

As workers take time off for summer holidays it means greater risk that personal devices and public Wi-Fi will be used to access sensitive corporate data.

Vulnerability management specialist Hackuity warns that this is a time when organizations are at their most vulnerable and cybercriminals are well aware of the fact.

New research published in November revealed that the severity of inbound cyberthreats increased during holiday months.

The findings, from our Barracuda XDR team' Global Security Operations Center, suggest that cyberattackers may take advantage of IT security professionals being away from the workplace to launch more complex, higher risk attacks -- possibly in the hope that understaffed security departments are less likely to be monitoring the network for threats or equipped to deal with any crisis.

With International Fraud Awareness Week and the holiday shopping season officially underway, analysts and retailers are diving into customers’ shopping habits. But it’s not just legitimate customers retailers need to be aware of, as fraudsters are just as keen on holiday shopping -- and they're already hitting online stores. 

Here are some of the top trends I'm seeing as we enter the peak of the holiday shopping season.